Talk:Taiga Kagami/@comment-33697498-20171119080249
Actually, the reason for Kagami's unpopularity and all the criticism he gets is very simple: it's because he managed to beat the GoM. The majority of the KnB fandom is female, and while there are male fans, too, I'm pretty sure the male fans just want the guys to beat each other up (on the court, ofc) and don't particularly care about who wins or loses as long as they get to see cool moves. Maybe some girls are like that too (I know I am!) but the overwhelming majority of female fans in this fandom are enamoured of the GoM and pissed off at how Kagami was acknowledged as a sort of seventh member at the end. However, this is sheer idiocy, as it was obvious from the start what was going to happen. Now, technically speaking all the major elements on the Seirin side have different goals: Kuroko wants to use Kagami and the rest of Seirin to "save" his fellow GoM members (because this is shounen and in shounen, defeat = friendship ^^), Kagami wants to challenge the top players in the country and grow stronger, and the rest of Seirin wants to win the nationals. All those goals can be achieved if the GoM teams, which are currently the top high school basketball teams in Japan, are defeated. That's why the main cast ends up forming a team in the first place. However, towards the end of the 1st season Kuroko develops a fondness for Seirin and a trust in Kagami beyond their usefulness in beating the GoM, Kagami stops being "an immature challenger" (as Kise puts it) and develops team spirit, Kiyoshi comes back and proves to be a worthy "big brother" for all of them, and Seirin becomes a true team that's united in its goal even though their motives are still fundamentally dissimilar. The loss against Touou facilitated this evolution, so it was necessary for them to lose there, especially because Aomine would definitely say the right (wrong?) thing and shatter Kuroko...who then built himself back up into someone better, with the rest of Seirin's help. But from then on out it was imperative that Seirin win; if they lost again, Kiyoshi would be gone next season so they'd be a lot weaker, and Kuroko's, Kagami's and Seirin's dreams would all be broken. But more importantly (since imo Seirin's dreams are very much secondary to the plot compared to GoM's salvation), after taking on such a determined challenger but still triumphing, the GoM would continue their ruthless and selfish basketball and probably leave quite a mark on the high school basketball scene for years to come. So it makes zero sense for the GoM fans to resent Seirin for beating them, because their defeats all made them better people and better players. At the rate they were going they would have crashed and burned soon, so anyone who claims to love GoM and/or Kuroko but hates that they got beaten have not understood at all what KnB is about in the first place, or what Kuroko wanted for the GoM and for Japanese HS basketball. Now, as for Kagami: is he OP? Yes. But then what about the GoM? All of them are way more OP than Kagami, sometimes in the most bizarre ways (case in point: Aomine's 100% unpreventable shot, Kise's Perfect Copy and Akashi's ability to play all 5 positions on his own). On top of that, all of them are on teams with much more impressive skills and stats than the Seirin members, except maybe Kiyoshi. I absolutely believe that Kagami needs not only the Zone, but also Kuroko's skills and Seirin's support to win against Touou, Yousen and Rakuzan. Kaijou and Shuutoku, whom I figured from the start were weaker than the rest, could be beaten with out-of-Zone Kagami + Kuroko + Seirin, but the others definitely would have won if all of Seirin couldn't give 120%, as Imayoshi said in S02. But, I also believe this was intentional on the mangaka's part, because what is Kuroko's (and Seirin's) philosophy? That a team with slightly less talented and less physically tough players can still win over the superior GoM teams through team spirit and trust and strategy, something that the GoM (plus certain teams like Touou which focuses on individual strengths and Rakuzan which has a single player they all 100% defer to) abandoned as a "sign of weakness" long ago. Will Kagami eventually get strong enough to win a one-on-one with the stronger GoM members even without the Zone? Maybe, maybe not. He'll definitely have to try, though, because this is only the first year and they have several more tournaments to go before they graduate. There's no way he can rely on the Zone all the time. But since he started later, he's definitely going to take his time getting there. Is he selfish? Everybody's selfish, after all, but yes, he was ostensibly similar to Aomine in the first half or so of the first season. However, as time goes on this becomes less and less obvious, and then in S02 I distinctly remember him saying "I'll even stay on the bench the whole game if that'll help Seirin win, I don't care about winning on my own anymore." Just like Kuroko, who joined Seirin with ulterior motives but eventually grew fond enough of their philosophy that he started playing for Seirin first and the GoM second, Kagami is the same. That's one of the two major halves of his character development; the other being to think before he acts (at least half the time, anyway >_<). Oh, and I find the anime-only ending for the Extra Game movie to be nonsense. It had way too many holes and was evidently put in to force a "dramatic conclusion to the saga" without any thought as to how it would clash with the rest of the series. Seirin's offense and defense will fall apart without Kagami, especially now that Kiyoshi isn't there either. Kagami's just found out how much his strengths become pronounced when playing for his team but now he's gonna go off on his own ''again ''to play not only for a different team, but ''against his own country!? ''And on a more logical note, how did none of the GoM members get scouted for the NBA when Kagami did? Why did Alex, who seemed to have developed a fondess for Japanese basketball, suddenly decide to take Kagami to America with her? And why on earth should skilled players just up and go to the US anyway? If these guys (GoM + Kagami) were to play for the Japanese national team then Japan would be pretty much invincible. (*Sigh* Reminds me of the third Madoka Magica movie. I really regretted watching that one, too) Should have just stuck with the manga for Extra Game, though honestly Extra Game was like a GoM fan comic or something in itself, what with them being even ''more ''OP than in the series, what was Fujimaki thinking?